Quotations About / On: IDENTITY

Think about the pressure to "pass" by lying about one's age ... that familiar temptation to falsify a condition of one's birth or identity and pretend to be part of a more favored group. Fair-skinned blacks invented "passing" as a term, Jews escaping anti-Semitism perfected the art, and the sexual closet continues the punishment, but pretending to be a younger age is probably the most encouraged form of "passing," with the least organized support for "coming out" as one's true generational self.

One of the most highly valued functions of used parents these days is to be the villains of their children's lives, the people the child blames for any shortcomings or disappointments. But if your identity comes from your parents' failings, then you remain forever a member of the child generation, stuck and unable to move on to an adulthood in which you identify yourself in terms of what you do, not what has been done to you.

The normal family triangle, then, provides the daughter with a stage upon which to rehearse her separate identity. When the parents' marriage is relatively free of conflict, the daughter can go from one parent to the other for an emotional safety valve, to let off steam. Having equal, unambivalent access to both parents—and spared their competition for her loyalty—she can then concentrate not so much on dual allegiance as on simply growing up.

The mother whose self-image is dependent on her children places on those children the responsibility for her own identity, and her involvement in the details of their lives can put great pressure on the children. A child suffers when everything he or she does is extremely important to a parent; this kind of over-involvement can turn even a small problem into a crisis.

Body and soul, Black America reveals the extreme questions of contemporary life, questions of freedom and identity: How can I be who I am?

Promiscuity in men may cheapen love but sharpen thought. Promiscuity in women is illness, a leakage of identity.

Theorists may say what they like about a man's children being a continuation of his own identity, but it will generally be found that those who talk in this way have no children of their own. Practical family men know better.

The real meditation is ... the meditation on one's identity. Ah, voilà une chose!! You try it. You try finding out why you're you and not somebody else. And who in the blazes are you anyhow? Ah, voilà une chose!

Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these disparities unites them.

The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.